It took a few hours, but Rokag eventually calmed down and went to work at her daily duties. Finn and Agrat also went to their own chores, and the three mostly stayed apart from each other until that evening. When she returned home for the night, Agrat and Finn were already sitting in the living room, next to each other on the couch. She sat across from them in a chair.

“Right,” Rokag said. “Of course you did, since you traveled all th’ way here.”

“And it goes without saying that things get dangerous when you don’t really have a permanent home,” Finn said. “You know we moved here for a better life, since that wasn’t possible in Ettinsmoor. We didn’t get to actually settle down and stop for some time, and during that time we had some… difficult encounters.” She leaned sideways in the chair and rested her cheek against her knuckles.

Another story taking place in the D&D universe about Rokag. I wrote this up to explore her personality, her upbringing and values, and–most importantly–her motivations for traveling. Plus, her parents carry a lot of baggage with them, so I thought that was important to examine as well. Playing several characters with related baggage in a TTRPG is tremendously difficult, since you can’t adequately roleplay out reactions to character death or change at the table. Part of writing this was so I could retroactively include that, too.

Anyway, it’s a two-parter to make for more comfortable reading. I’ll post the second half in a couple days. As usual with stories based on D&D characters, just roll with it if it seems bizarre and outta nowhere or confusing.

The target swung lightly with the wind. Its bright red paint stuck out among the green foliage to everyone but Rokag. It looked just as muddled tan, blue, and yellow as everything else. The target was custom-made for orc eyes, and had bright yellow stripes in each of the concentric circles, to help make up for her poor color vision. Several arrows littered the ground around it, a tree off to one side, and only one stuck in the target itself. A songbird fluttered overhead as it landed on a branch, but otherwise, she only heard the breeze and the sound of her own breaths. Her uncle Tabris sat behind her, watching her closely. She drew back the string on her bow and squinted one eye.

“No, no—both open,” Tabris said, his voice hardly a whisper. “It’s a myth that squinting helps. Which is your dominant eye, anyway?” Rokag blinked and looked over at him.

“Dominant eye?” she said. “Like a dominant hand?” He nodded. He was much shorter than her, and overall smaller as well. Lithe. A human through-and-through. Yet as a child, he discomforted her. Something about his eyes looked oddly blank, as if nothing existed inside him. The mauling scar on the left side of his face, too—and the others on his body, for that matter—disturbed her, even if her own fathers were equally marred. That, and—she could hardly recall why, or when, or how—she remembered that one day, he suddenly changed into… this. Her earliest, vaguest memories of him seemed to be of a different person entirely. Someone who smirked, someone who spoke with life an energy. Someone just like her dad. Then, when he returned after an absence, stoicism. As if he forgot he had a face.

For the sake of having everything in one spot, here’s an older story I wrote about Agrat telling a bedtime story to his daughter, Rokag, about his adventures during our D&D campaigns. I enjoyed writing it–it’s mostly dialogue, which is my favorite part of writing–and it made for alright character development. Rokag started out as an infant in the campaign, then quickly aged up so I could play her in a later campaign, if desired. In retrospect, the world they’re in feels a little blank, probably because at the time I didn’t quite know exactly what the characters were doing in their home and work life, besides vague ideas. That, and I’m not satisfied with the ending. But ah well–it’s an exploratory sorta work anyway, so it did the job.

Agrat carried Rokag with her flopped over his broad shoulder, her skinny legs dangling over his chest and her arms stretched out down his back. He kept one arm wrapped over her back, and the other around her knees.

“Alright, kiddo,” he said as they made their way upstairs together. “Time fer you t’ get some sleep.” Rokag groaned and thumped his back with her little fists.

“I’m not tired!” she said and writhed in an attempt to escape. Agrat chuckled and patted her. He creaked open the door to her room. Rokag’s had the smallest room in the house, but only hers had three windows. One was wider than the others, and set in the corner wall above a built-in bench that doubled as storage for her toys. However, she left most of them scattered on the floor. Her favorite was a soft boar Finn and Agrat made for her—he carved its facial features and its paws from wood, and Finn sewed its body, limbs, and head together. They stuffed it with wool. It had a few “scars” of its own from years of dragging it around, and she loved to compare it to both of them. Now that she was a little older, she mostly kept it in her room, but still treasured it dearly.

“What, y’ think you can trick yer old pops?” he said. “I saw you yawnin’ down there through yer nose. Come on—into bed with you.” He bent and laid her down, and Rokag crossed her arms while he tugged the blanket up to tuck her in.